Patricia Briggs - Bone Crossed

"Who do you call about something like this?" he asked. "It doesn't look good. Blackwood is missing; Amber is dead—probably buried in the backyard. I'm a lawyer, and if I were my own client, I'd advise myself to avoid trial, plead guilty, and do reduced time if I could get it."

He was scared.

It finally occurred to me that we'd survived. Blackwood and his sweet grandmotherly vampire ghost were gone. Or at least I hoped she was gone. There wasn't a second pile of ashes in the basement.

"Did you notice the other vampire?" I asked him.

He gave me a blank look. "Other vampire?"

"Never mind," I told him. "I expect the sunlight killed her."

I got up and found a phone on a small table in the corner of the living room. I dialed Adam's cell phone.

"Hey," I said. It sounded like I'd been smoking cigars all night.

"Mercy?" And I knew I was safe.

I sat on the floor. "Hey." I said again.

"Chad told us where you are," he told me. "We're about twenty minutes away."

"Chad told you?" Stefan would still be unconscious, I'd known. It just hadn't occurred to me that Chad could tell them where we were. Stupid me. All he'd have needed was a piece of paper.

"Chad's all right?" asked Corban urgently.

"Fine," I told him. "And he's leading the cavalry here."

"It sounds like we're not needed," said Adam.

I needed him.

"Blackwood is dead," I told Adam.

"I thought so, since you are calling me," Adam said.

"If it weren't for the oakman, it might have been bad," I told him. "And I think the oakman is dead."

"All honor to him, then," said Samuel's voice. "To die killing one of the dark-bound evils is not a bad thing, Mercy. Chad asks after his father."

I wiped my face and gathered my thoughts. "Tell Chad he's fine. We're both fine." I watched bruises fade from my legs. "Could you… could you stop at a convenience store and buy a yellow toy car for me? Bring it with you when you come?"

There was a little pause. "A yellow toy car?" asked Adam.

"That's right." I remembered something else. "Adam, Corban's worried that the police will think he's killed Amber-and probably Blackwood, though there won't be any body."

"Trust me," said Adam. "We'll fix it for everyone."

"All right," I told him. "Thank you." And then I thought a little more. "The vampires will want Chad and

Corban gone. They know too much."

"You and Stefan and the pack are the only ones who know that," said Adam. "The pack doesn't care, and Stefan won't betray them."

"Hey," I told him lightly—pressing the handset into my face until it almost hurt. "I love you."

"I'll be there."

I LEFT CORBAN SITTING IN THE LIVING ROOM AND WALKED reluctantly down the stairs. I didn't want to know for sure that the oakman was dead. I didn't want to confront Catherine if she was still about… and I thought she would have killed me if she could have. But I also didn't want to be naked when Adam came.

The oakman was gone. I decided that it must be a good thing. The fae didn't—as far as I knew—turn into dust and blow away when they died. So if he wasn't here, that meant he'd left.

"Thank you," I whispered because he wasn't there to hear me. Then I put my clothes on and ran up the stairs to wait for rescue with Corban.

When Adam came, he had the yellow car I'd asked him for. It was a one-sixteenth scale model of a VW bug. He watched as I took it out of the package and followed me down the stairs and set it on the bed in the small room where I'd first woken up.

"It's for you," I said.

No one answered me.

"Are you going to tell me what that was about?" Adam asked as we went back upstairs.

"Sometime," I told him. "When we're telling ghost stories around a campfire, and I want to scare you." He smiled, and his arm tightened around my shoulders. "Let's go home."

I closed my hand on the lamb necklace I'd found on the table next to the phone, as if someone had left it for me to find.

THE FOLLOWING SATURDAY WE PAINTED THE GARAGE. True to his word, Wulfe had removed the crossed bones. The least he could have done was repaint the door, but he'd managed to remove the bones and leave the graffiti that had covered them alone. I thought he'd done it just to bug me.

Gabriel's sisters had voted for pink as the new color and were very disappointed when I insisted on white. So I told them they could paint the door pink.

It's a garage. What can it hurt?

"It's a garage," I told Adam, who was looking at the Day-Glo pink door. "What can it hurt?"

He laughed and shook his head. "It makes me squint, even in the dark, Mercy. Hey, I know what I can get you for your next birthday," he said. "A set of open-end wrenches in pink or purple. Leopard print, maybe."

"You have me confused with my mother," I said with dignity. "The door was painted with cheap spray paint—as no reputable paint company had anything this gaudy in their color palette. Give it a couple weeks, and it'll turn this sickly orangish pink color. Then I can hire them to paint it brown or green."

"Police have searched Blackwood's house," Adam told me. "They haven't found any sign of Blackwood or Amber. Officially, they believe Amber might have run off with Blackwood." He sighed. "I know that it tarnishes Amber unfairly, but it was the best story we could come up with and still leave her husband in the clear."

"The people who matter know," I told him. Amber didn't have any immediate family she cared for. In a few months, I was tentatively planning a trip to Mesa, Arizona, where Char was living. I'd tell her, because Char was the only other person Amber would care about. "No one is going to get into trouble about this, are they?"

"The people who matter know," he answered with a faint smile. "Unofficially, Blackwood scared the bejeebers out of a lot of people who are glad to see him gone. No one will take it further."

"Good." I touched the bright white wall next to the door. It looked better. I hoped that it wouldn't scare away customers. People are funny. My customers look at my run-down-appearing garage and know they are saving the money I don't put into face-lifts.

Tim's cousin Courtney had paid for all of the paint and labor in return for my dropping the charges against her. I figured she had been hurt enough.

"I heard you and Zee worked out something on the garage."

I nodded. "I have to repay him immediately—he said so, and he is fae so it must be done. He's going to loan me the money to do it at the same interest rate as the original loan."

He grinned and opened the pink door so I could precede him inside. "So you're paying him the same amount as before?"

"Uncle Mike came up with it, and it made Zee happy." Amused him was more like it. All the fae have a strange sense of humor.

Stefan was sitting on my stool by the cash register. He'd spent two nights unmoving in Adam's basement, then disappeared without a word to either Adam or me.

"Hey, Stefan," I said.

"I came to tell you that we no longer share a bond," he told me stiffly. "Blackwood broke it."

"When?" I asked. "He didn't have time. You answered my call—and it wasn't very long after that when

Blackwood died."

"I imagine when he fed from you again," Stefan said. "Because when Adam called me to tell me you'd disappeared, I couldn't find you at all."

"Then how did you manage to find me?" I asked.

"Marsilia."

I looked at his face, but I couldn't read how much it had cost him to ask for her help. Or what she'd demanded in return.

"You didn't tell me," Adam said. "I'd have gone with you."

The vampire smiled grimly. "Then she would have told me nothing."

"She knew where Blackwood denned?" Adam asked.